Hokkaido Milk Bread

A boxy loaf at last

Wise men say it  is unwise  to bake  a humongous loaf just days before setting off for holiday. But irrationalness  ruled the day.  So here it is , my Hokkaido bread baked in my Pullman.

Instead of the artisan  look, I opted for 'clean lines'.  That is another tick on my to-do list : bake a really boxy bread (  yeah, I have strange ambitions ! )

This recipe fits the bill ;  a copious amount of flour to fill  up a full sized Pullman bread pan and the chance to get rid of the leftover whipping cream.  Everything went well except that my Math has gone to the dogs. I couldn't divide properly and ended up with 1 of the 4 rolled up  dough a tad smaller than the rest.  1/4 of the loaf  didn't fill up fully to the top, which makes it only a 75 % success rate for my effort .

Oh well ! I use a calculator the next time instead of relying on my half baked mental maths.

 Lily  deserves the credit for this recipe. Here goes :

Ingredients:

1 cup  milk ( room temperature )

5 fl oz whipping cream

1 large egg ( I used 2 egg whites )

1.5 tsp salt ( 1 used 1 T, which slows the fermentation! Oops! )

5 T sugar

3 T milk powder

4 cups bread flour

1/2 cup cake flour

3 t instant yeast

Method:

Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. In the bread machine, pour in milk, whipping cream and top off with dry ingredients. 

Use the dough function of the bread machine. The cycle takes 1.5 hours.

Remove risen dough from bread machine . Stretch dough and fold into thirds.

Divide it into 4 portions. Rest dough for 20 minutes, covered.

Grease a Pullman loaf pan. Roll up each dough. Place  rolls into  loaf pan.  Cover Pullman, leaving a tiny gap. Let the dough rise up to double, about 60 minutes.

Cover Pullman pan completely. Bake in a preheated 180 C oven for about 35-40 minutes. I baked mine for 37 minutes.

Cool pan and remove bread to cool completely before serving.

Mlk bread at attention!

Verdict : dough was workable and not wet as envisioned . The texture is reminiscent of bread from Toast Box. Due to the extra 1/2 t of pink salt used ( 1T instead of 1.5t), the taste and texture is  rather robust ( since salt binds water and retards fermentation ). A better bet would be 1 to 1.5 teaspoon of salt for a softer texture.

This post will be submitted to   Aspiring Bakers #8 ( Bread Seduction ) June 2011  hosted by Sweetylicious.

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